Rusted or busted: America’s Asian pivot
Barack
Obama is in Asia this week for a series of summits. He hopes to boost
the fortunes of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal involving 12
countries on both sides of the Pacific. The justification for the pact
is mainly political: that it will allow America to help write the rules
for the coming Asian century. Yet Mr Obama’s team has repeatedly
announced a foreign-policy focus on Asia, only to find it has its hands
full with the latest crisis in the Middle East. This trip looks likely
to conform to that pattern. Important though TPP is in the long term, it
does not have the same urgency as dealing with terrorism carried out,
or inspired by, Islamic State. Until a few weeks ago, the president’s
strategy seemed to be working in its own terms, with IS largely confined
to Iraq and what was Syria. That is no longer true.
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